Bridge bashed at Clysta Willett Park

Vandals recently damaged one of the walking bridges in the Clysta Willett Nature Trail. The bridge was recently built by an area Boy Scout as part of his Eagle Scout project.
Scott Liles/The Baxter Bulletin

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This walking bridge in the Clysta Willett Nature Trail was recently vandalized by one or more individuals. Damage to the bridge was estimated at $400, city officials said.(Photo11: Scott Liles/The Baxter Bulletin)Buy Photo

A foot bridge recently built by a Twin Lakes Area Boy Scout was damaged over the weekend by vandals.

City of Mountain Home employees reported to police Monday that one or more people over the weekend ripped out metal piping underneath the handrails of a foot bridge in the Clysta Willett Nature Trail. The walking bridge was one of two built last fall by Russell Salyer of Norfork as his Eagle Scout project.

“It’s a bunch of hoodlums,” Mountain Home Parks and Recreation Director Billy D. Austin said. “They destroy whatever they want, when they want.”

Vandals removed 47 of the bridge’s 106 metal pipes, which were used as a decorative element on the bridge’s sides. City employees recovered more than 40 of the pipes Monday, Austin said.

“Most of them were in the ditch, by the bridge,” he said.

Several of the bars were bent but not removed. Two wooden pieces of the bridge’s side rail were severely damaged and will need to be replaced. The damage was estimated at $400.

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Five metal pipes are missing from this section of a foot bridge in the Clysta Willett Nature Trail. Vandals removed over 40 of the metal pipes from the bridge over the weekend, tossing most of them in the ditch that the bridge spans.(Photo11: Scott Liles/The Baxter Bulletin)

“This sort of thing, it goes in spells,” Austin said. “You might have several years of nothing getting damaged, and then you will have an outbreak of things getting destroyed.”

Anyone with information regarding the bridge’s vandalism is encouraged to contact the Mountain Home Police Department at (870) 425-6336.

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Boy Scout Russell Salyer of Norfork talks about the process of replacing two of the bridges on the Clysta Willett Park nature trail for his Eagle Scout project.
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Salyer, a member of Boy Scout Troop #156, built two foot bridges in the Clysta Willett Nature Trail last year. The project took about a year-and-a-half to complete, with planning and design work occupying most of the time, he told The Bulletin in November.

The bridges’ actual construction time took about four days, he said, with additional labor provided by his Troop and friends from high school.